Starting on September 18th, millions of users will have the ability to update their iDevice to the latest version of the OS. Provided you haven’t been installing the developer builds of iOS 7, here’s a quick look at some features worth getting excited about.

Whether you’re picking up the latest iPhone 5S or 5C, or any iOS device released in the last two years at least, you’ll be able to update to iOS 7. The update will come in over the air, and when your phone comes back to life there will be a whole host of new features to compliment the redesigned OS. Once you’ve gotten over all of the soft tones, parallax backgrounds, and unique textures, there’s a few things you’ll want to try out.

Quick access to search

Few people realize how important it is to be able to access your search from anywhere — that is, until you have to leave whatever you are doing to initiate a search. The pull-down search tool in iOS 7 will offer a universal search from any point in the OS. You can be playing a game, sending an email, or on a phone call and have access to this pull-down search box. Coupled with the double-tap to access apps running in the background, navigating through multiple tasks will be significantly more fluid and feel natural.

Siri and Twitter play together now

Of the many things Apple’s virtual assistant software is capable of, integration with third party apps isn’t exactly one of them. In iOS 7, Siri will be able to search Twitter alongside the rest of the results. It’s a small feature, but one that will give a whole new type of information to users and will encourage more socially oriented searches when interacting with Siri.

Airdrop sharing

Apple’s new sharing service makes it easy to push files to friends with iOS devices that are nearby. Airdrop sharing lets you select specific friends and share files from your iPhone with them. There’s no need to be on the same network, and no need to host the file on a third party service like Dropbox first. You can select multiple recipients and push the file to them in just a few quick taps.

iTunes Radio and the new Music app

Alongside the massive UI changes to iOS 7 was the recreation of a few of Apple’s key apps. The Music app was chief among them, with a dead simple UI and the same iTunes integration. There’s also a new music discovery and streaming service with iTunes Radio. Set to compete with the other streaming services out there, iTunes radio plans to offer the ability to create your own radio station be genre or artist. This service falls quickly into place against Google Play Music All Access, and will be available just in time to offer an alternative to anyone considering Microsoft’s Xbox Music.

iWork

Occasionally, we use these tiny handheld computers for work, and Apple thinks their suite of apps in iWork is the best. The ability to work on documents from your desktop to your tablet to your phone is a powerful tool, and Apple has incorporated that experience into the entire iWork suite. On top of the web-based iWork service, these mobile productivity apps will be right in line to compete with Google Drive and Microsoft Office.

All together, iOS 7 is trying to be something new without upsetting those who have been using it from the beginning. There are so many little changes, from the UI modifications to the new APIs available to developers, that it may just look like a paint job to a casual observer. In reality, it’s a whole new iOS ready for a whole new generation of Apple users.